Appearance is also an unreliable basis on which to judge ability to read and understand health instructions [ 13].
Numerous appellate court decisions have limited judges' ability to intervene in particularly brutal cross-examinations.
It certainly doesn't say much about the judges' ability to pick the winner.
"But people ought to be looking at judges' ability to analyze and interpret the law, their legal training, their experience level and, most importantly, their impartiality," he continued.
A federal judge in Brooklyn took the unusual step yesterday of videotaping a criminal's sentencing, saying the tape was needed because of a new federal law intended to restrict judges' ability to give lighter sentences.
After one case in the late 1990s, the Supreme Court restricted judges' ability to send cases back and ordered the abolition of the notorious "Decree 55" defining state secrets, whose content was itself secret.But another problem is that the law remains vague.
The bill, which President Bush is expected to sign, would immediately restrict judges' ability to give more lenient sentences than federal guidelines call for in cases involving children and sexual offenses.
Perhaps the greatest test of the success of the Hussein trial will be the judges' ability to resist the inherent drama of the charges and to focus on documenting them as dispassionately as possible.
The law also established mandatory detention and deportation for certain crimes (like burglary and fraud), and eliminated immigration judges' ability to exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis.
Jacob, the law professor who has reviewed the pacts, said they were "interfering with the operation of the courts" and judges' ability to evaluate whether a search and seizure involving Stingray technology is even constitutional under the fourth amendment.
